


after the tiger walks away for good

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Life of Pi - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 11:23:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7266130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer The Author's book hits the shelves, Pi takes his family to Pondicherry for the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	after the tiger walks away for good

It is summer in Pondicherry, a hot heavy summer. The sky is an unforgiving blue, grudgingly lending his color to the water. With it, the pool looks more like a small ocean with dirty porcelain shores. It ripples softly before the impact.

A child swims to the surface, spluttering and smiling. She waves at her parents before starting to climb the ladder again, ready for another jump.

Her father rises from the padded chair. Out of sunhat's protection the glare of sun falls familiarly in the curves of his face.

"I'm going to the shop. Do you need anything?"

The wife needs more sunscreen for the children, the son needs a new issue of spiderman. The daughter yells from the water for ice-cream, but her parent's know she will only be hungry in a couple of hours and ignore her. The man gathers his hat and wallet and goes.

Outside of the pool complex is the world at midday. Lunch rush, cars and bicycles and rickshaws in happy fear of collision. He weaves his way though easily. It feels strange not to be riding his bike in these streets, strange not to be shrugging off his school jacket on the way home.

Home is gone, turned into a school for young children, but the shop is still there. Crammed between the neighborhood's worst restaurant and a nail salon he doesn't recognize. The owner is a stranger too. Looking closer it might have been an old school mate, but it is hard to tell behind the cloud of smoke. The man does not cough; he has strong lungs. He chooses the sunscrean, a comic with a properly dramatic cover, considers the merits of a fan and dismisses it.

He has to look around his wallet for the right currency. The little burough had long lost its British features, the times of the empire forgotten, but while the shop owner doesn't accept Canadian dollars, no, not american pounds either, English money goes. Luckily he still has some pennies from his last conference in London.

On his way out he lingers. The bestseller's shelves look inviting, and he had forgotten his book at the hotel. One catches his eyes: a great sea watercolor, a small boat. At the prow a tiger bares its fangs at the upcoming storm. The cover name reads Life of Richard Parker, by an half-familiar name.

"Will you have the book too?" The shop owner asks, annoyed at having his afternoon smoke interrupted.

"No." Piscine says, putting down the book. "I was just looking."


End file.
